NOTES for Luk 20:1-8

The scene described in today's Gospel reading is remarkable for the Savior's wisdom and, one may even say, wit. Yet let us try to enter into its theological meaning, because unlike our ordinary human habit, Christ shows wit not for the sake of wit itself.

Why does He speak specifically about John? The main point is that John appears as the Forerunner of Christ not only in the historical, event-based sense, but also in the spiritual sense. He proclaims repentance, without which coming to Christ is impossible. That is why the Lord gives those who question Him no answer: giving it would be meaningless, just as it is meaningless to explain integral calculus to someone who has not yet mastered arithmetic.

The fact that John brings us only to the first step is also shown by the episode from the book of Acts (19:1-6): "He said to them, Into what then were you baptized? They answered, Into John's baptism. Paul said, John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the One coming after him, that is, in Christ Jesus. When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus."

And although now we are not formally baptized with John's baptism, since spiritually it has been joined to Jesus' baptism, in practice we live through it as that very repentance which brings us into the church. Let us remember that our Lord, who has no need of repentance, also passes through baptism by John in order to show us the way, for He is "the way, and the truth, and the life." And it is precisely this way that He recalls to the chief priests, scribes, and elders who question Him.

The question Jesus asked the Pharisees about John and his preaching with baptism was, of course, not accidental. It was not accidental precisely because it became the answer to the question about Himself, about His authority and His ministry. In essence, the Savior's question becomes for the Pharisees speaking with Him a test of sincerity and honesty, first of all before themselves. It would seem that the issue concerns things not only different, but incomparable: John, though great, is only a prophet, while Jesus is the Messiah and Son of God.

But this difference is not so important in this case. What matters is only what the Pharisees asking Jesus about His authority are ready to see and hear. And they would best answer this question for themselves. The question about John precisely leads them to such an answer. Here the issue is not the Messiah, but only a prophet, yet a prophet whom the people honored and against whom it was dangerous to speak.

It is quite possible that if the same Pharisees had directly answered Jesus what they thought, "from men," His answer to them would have been different. He deprives no one of freedom; He requires only honesty and sincerity. A person can be mistaken, can see everything in a wrong light; more than that, from the point of view of the Savior Himself all people are mistaken to one degree or another, since no human being sees reality as He sees it.

In every concrete situation, as much is open to Him as to His heavenly Father, and no human being can say this about himself. But what matters to Him is not our infallibility, but our inner wholeness. The very wholeness inseparable from sincerity and honesty before oneself, and therefore before others. Jesus asks the Pharisees a question whose answer should have shown them themselves whether they had this wholeness. And it turned out that Jesus' interlocutors failed the test.

They did not answer His question not because they did not know the answer, but because they were afraid. And yielding to fear is the simplest and most widespread way of destroying that very inner wholeness. But then it made no sense for Jesus to answer the question posed by His interlocutors: He would have had to speak in one way or another about the Kingdom, where a person with a divided heart and divided thoughts cannot enter. The Pharisees' answer to Jesus' question became also the answer to the question they themselves had asked. A sad answer, but the only possible one.

There was a significant difference between the leaders of the Pharisaic religious brotherhood and those who could conditionally be called "ordinary people," in particular in how they perceived certain people and events. Of course, when speaking of "ordinary people," one must still remember that they were not entirely ordinary. An illiterate Jew in Gospel times was a great rarity, as was a Jew who did not read or even study the Torah and the Prophets, what today we would call Sacred Scripture.

Every synagogue necessarily had a religious school where all local boys, and sometimes girls as well, were taught not only literacy but also elementary work with the sacred books, including a special practice of prayerful, or meditative, reading. The culture of working with the sacred books was quite widespread in Jewish society, and among the teachers of the Torah, whom the Gospel usually calls scribes, the majority were occupied precisely with teaching this work to children and adults, often for free or for a very modest fee.

On the other hand, there were also academies in the Jewish world where the Torah and other sacred books were studied in the greatest detail. This was a special world of experts, educated theologians, sophisticated commentators on sacred texts, sometimes entering such subtleties and reaching such depths that ordinary readers of the Torah did not even suspect them. Unfortunately, this rather closed little world of academic theologians had, as often happens in such cases, a considerable measure of learned snobbery, which made them look on the ordinary readers mentioned above as ignorant of the Torah.

And this same learned snobbery made them treat, if not with contempt, then at least with suspicion, those who might be called popular spiritual authorities, among whom, incidentally, John the Baptist belonged. Of course, such restraint was often justified: mass religious consciousness is not very discerning in choosing its religious leaders. But prior distrust sometimes prevented both academic scribes and educated leaders of religious brotherhoods from recognizing genuine people of God, as happened in the case of John the Baptist.

And then the leaders of the Pharisaic movement had only to maneuver between their own distrustfulness and even a certain spiritual fastidiousness on the one hand, and popular sympathies on the other, for open expression of their position could have ended badly for them. Yet such maneuvering does not promote either spiritual integrity or full spiritual life, and the Savior's question should have made His interlocutors think about this simple but non-obvious truth.

There is a certain fatalism in the parable of the vineyard tenants: the chief priests must kill the Son who was sent, just as their ancestors killed and persecuted the prophets. But there is a way out of this fatal circle, for every listener to a parable can identify himself with one character or another and see how he must act in order to follow his chosen path. In this sense, each of us freely chooses his own path, while the parable merely points out the existing alternatives and the way out of the situation. Here too the question is posed squarely: the chief priests can either identify themselves with those who killed and persecuted the prophets, or refrain from doing so and gain the opportunity freely to recognize in Jesus the Anointed One, the Christ. But they prefer not to take risky steps and simply to remove the Jesus who offended them. If only we knew how to use parables for their intended purpose and see in them not a statement of a future tragedy, but a challenge, one more occasion to choose...

Such is the difficult fate of Christian revelation: all the time, everyone who could fish something out of it for himself tried to use it for his own purposes. But its true divinity consists in this, that these attempts never succeeded completely, and sooner or later they failed.

Such also is the fate of those who try to present the Christian gospel as a textbook of revolution and Christ as the chief revolutionary of all times and peoples. Such attempts have been made more than once in the history of European culture. Yet precisely to them one can present the words of today's Gospel reading: "render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's." The apostles Paul and Peter were probably inspired by these words when they spoke the following words to the people of God. "Therefore be subject to every human authority for the Lord's sake, whether to the king as supreme, or to governors" (1 Pet 2:13). "Let every soul be subject to the higher authorities, for there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist have been established by God" (Rom 13:1).

Only in one case is submission to the authorities impossible: when authority appropriates divine powers for itself; what is God's can be given only to God. That is why the early Christians went, on the one hand, against the words of Peter and Paul, but on the other hand, if one looks more deeply at all three quotations mentioned here, it becomes clear that they were walking the only true path.

Should a Christian pay taxes? Christ’s words about paying tribute to Caesar have often been understood as justification for a certain “reasonable balance” between secular and religious life. Supposedly, Caesar has his own claims on us, and God has His. But Caesar and God cannot be compared, either in their authority or in our responsibility toward them. God alone created us and gives us life. God alone must we serve and worship. We have received everything from God. The implication is that we should first render “to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s,” and then give God whatever remains. But if we first render to God what is “due” Him—and we owe Him far more than we possess, as the parable of the talents reminds us—what will be left for poor Caesar? Of course, a Christian must participate in the life of society, including paying taxes to the state, but this is not service to Caesar, for one cannot serve two masters. It is service to society, to people, to our neighbors, and therefore service to love and to God. Thus, Jesus’ words about the tax continue His parable of the vineyard: we cultivate God’s vineyard and must give Him its fruits.